There are a number of devices, for example, machine-to-machine (M2M) devices, that, whilst potentially owned by an individual, may need to perform at least some operations without the need for user interaction with the device. Those operations may require communication between applications resident on the device and external entities. For example, one or more applications on a device may need to communicate with a different entity, for example a device management server or an application server, as part of its operation, without any user or operator interaction with the device.
As part of a device's operation, it may need autonomously to select a communications bearer (for example, 3GPP PS LTE; WLAN; Bluetooth; etc) in order to provide connectivity to an application(s) on the device. At the time of selecting a communications bearer, the device may have a choice of different communications bearers that may be used to provide connectivity. However, the device may not be able intelligently to choose the communications bearer that would provide the most efficient and/or cost effective connectivity for operation of its application(s).
If an inappropriate communications bearer is chosen by the device, one or more of the following consequences may ensue:                a) the chosen communications bearer may be expensive for the owner of the device;        b) the chosen communications bearer may have insufficient speed and/or too much latency for the needs of the application(s) running on the device (for example, because the chosen communications bearer is not designed to provide the required quality of service (QoS) and/or because of poor coverage);        c) the chosen communications bearer, whilst available at the time of choosing by the device, may be unlikely to remain available for long enough to be useful for the application(s) (for example, a highly mobile device may be unlikely to retain connectivity to a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) bearer).        
If a device chooses a bearer that results in any one or more of the above consequences, a poor quality of service and/or unexpected costs for the consumer will ensue. Therefore, it is desirable for the device to select a communications bearer that provides the most efficient and/or cost effective connectivity for operation of its application(s).